


It's Not Stalking, Dumbass

by Ellectrix



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-09 09:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11102100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellectrix/pseuds/Ellectrix
Summary: In which Karkat follows Dave around the meteor, in hopes of finding his weakness, all while denying to himself and others that it's not stalking.It's strategizing.But, he finds out more than he wanted to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ill add more tags I'm so out of ideas right now :")

Ever since the you met blonde haired fucktard in the said specified location which just so happens to be nonexistent until they dropped the supposed 'bomb' when in all actuality, it was the shit they were trying to destroy in the first place. Any fucking way, monologue over a and all that stupid jizz, you immediately knew you hated him. The first time he ever opened his mouth, you fucking knew you were gonna hate him. So fucking much that it's not even salvageable to become a black rom crush.

And the more you had to spend time with the fucking douche bag, the more your anger and irrational hatred for him grew. The obnoxious way he swaggered into any room like he owned the place. The expressionless face he kept on at all times despite the hunt of smugness in his tone of voice. The fucking aviators he wore despite there being no fucking sun in sight for gog knows how far. The way he gravitates most of his insults towards you, and you alone, while he smooches up to your sweeps long flush crush. The way he can't seem to take anything seriously, always responding in a gog awful memeful way or a shitty pun delivered in a terribly strung together short rap. The nicknames. The height jokes. The cultural offenses. The mother fucking _buckets._

He knows how to fucking push your every trigger button. And he won't stop dangling the fact that he could expose your secret stash of rom coms you've expertly hidden all over the meteor. Yes, everyone fucking knew you were obsessed, but not enough to literally hide the shit all over the place in case you needed an emergency entertainment when shit gets boring. Which basically 99% of the time. No one bothers to even question why they always seem to find you lounging around the randomest of places, watching your shitty troll rom comments favorites on whatever device you have on hand.

Nobody but Strider the dickwad himself.

He knows what gets you angry and what gets you to snap back at him feverishly no matter how much you try to ignore his dumbass existence. The game just _loves_ to torture it's players, doesn't it?!

While you, know jackshit about the blonde haired egotistical godtier. All you ever do is fervently belittle and disparage his existence in the game while he looks down at you from the wall he's been leaning at for the past hour. Expressionless, with the exception of a small change in the way his plush pink lips curled into a sly smirk. You want to fucking tackle him to the ground and beat the shit out of his gogdamn face until he can't fucking smile ever again.

But..- You don't.

Being the big pussy that you are, you abscond and storm off back to your respiteblock to spend another hour and a half, fantasizing the ways you'd like to torture the motherfucker. If only you knew what triggers him and gets him to feel the same insecurity and rage you do when he does the stupid shit that he does to you. On the daily. For once, you want to get revenge on Strider. And during those hours thinking of him, you formulate a plan that you let dwell inside your think pan for a few days until you've convinced yourself it wasn't as stupid as you think it is. It will take some time and concentration though.

But fuck it. Capre diem or whatever the shit Rose taught Terezi. Something about "you only live once, unless you're a godtier." What the fuck does Maryam see in that goth girl? She's got shitty humor. But then again, so does Maryam so you think they might actually match each other pretty well.

Getting off topic, Vantas.

Back to the topic at hand, after letting the thought ruminate in your think pan for long enough, you actually decide to act on it already.

The only thing you thought of to uncover the stoic faced human's secrets is to observe him and his routines. You sure as hell know that Rose won't tell you shit without over analyzing your reasons and decomposing it until it doesn't even match what you said in the first place. You're pretty fucking sure the only living being she hasn't psychoanalized is Kanaya out of courtesy to her matesprit. And probably mayor.

The very next day after deciding to finally take action to get your revenge on the Strider, you followed him around the meteor, trying to be careful with your steps as to not be found by the blonde asshole.

Strider's got karma heading his way.

-

Week 1.

The fair haired fucktard is actually quite a big klutz when constipated shit isn't spouting from his face hole like a gogdamn broken dam of aboslutely gross ass shit. You've been avoiding him all day, hiding behind corners and escaping quickly through transportalizers when you think he begins to look a bit suspicious of his surroundings. From what you've gathered so far, Strider randomly walks the dank, lifeless hallways while mumbling like an idiot until he runs into something that takes him out of his trance. You don't fucking know what kind of hoof beast secretion is coming out of his mouth, just that you see his lips moving every few seconds when you get the chance to see his face.

At this point in time, about half a sweep into the travel into the next game session, you've learned how to differentiate small changes in Strider's expression, as well as his behaviors. The slight quirk of his eyebrows that tell you he's frowning behind his pretentious sunglasses. The curve of the corners of his mouth when it looks like he wants to laugh, but keeps it in quite well. The way he constantly taps his fingers on something, keeping a steady beat. A different beat each time you see him, actually. You've tried to recreate the way he taps his finger on a table and you found out that they all have different lengths and intervals.

Any fucking way, you still continue in observing the asshole throughout the day. Mostly boring day to day shit. Spending hours on his achlemized turntables inside his respiteblock, helping Mayor expand can town while red crayons always mysteriously disappear, fucking with Serket by pranking her using his time travelling abilities (you think it's actually a pretty good use of his powers since Vriska reacts fairly fervently to the stupid ass pranks that should've been obvious with her 'vision eight fold'), and hard-core thridwheeling around Kanaya and Rose while they use the excuse of 'researching' to continue their gross sloppy make-out sessions.

You're quite disappointed that Strider didn't make a fool of himself so that you can use that evidence to blackmail his ass. The fact that he randomly walks around and runs into things seems to be well known to everyone but you. Probably because you actually paid little attention to his existence until this very crucial moment. But hey, you've got more ammo to shoot at him as counter for the shit he gives you for liking romcoms.

Not bad as a first try, if you'd say so yourself.

-

Week 2.

At least more interesting shit happens in the second week. The bastard has started to subtly look for you, mentioning the fact that he hasn't seen you in days to the other's rather casually before quickly dropping the subject when he say they haven't either. Fucking hell. Like you'd let him find you to verbally torture your ears until you need from the inside out. Then again, he also mentions that he hasn't seen Rose or Kanaya either, so you suspect he might just actually care about the people living with him inside the meteor. But you can't think of a single reason why he would give a single fuck about whether you suddenly disappeared one day. He treats you like any other shit.

Apart from that, nothing much else happens that seems to interest you about the way he's acting. He does the same things, a seeming routine. Although, you guess you should mention it here now. Strider has a huge stash of yellowish orange fluid under his bed and inside a secret compartment inside his closet somewhere. You couldn't really see where from the vent shafts you were hiding out in, but you've seen him pull out the bottle from in there before chilling on his bed while he draws his fucked up comic series. You don't even bother to remember the name (hella Jeff and sweet bro).

You've heard a few honks inside the surprisingly wide space of the vents, but you've tried to ignore it as much as you can. You're determined to find out the blonde haired asshole biggest weakness to torment him with. Maybe it has something to do with the liquid he keeps on chugging in large quantities? You might have to try and sneak inside his 'very private' respiteblock to inspect in further.

-

Week 3.

You've tailed him for most of the days throughout this week. You wait patiently until you've figured out how long he stays away from his respiteblock before acting on the perhaps too complex plan you've whipped up late at night. At least you're used to 3 hour sleeping habit since you can't stay with your eyes closed for too long before the night terrors begin to haunt your dreams that actually start pleasantly enough. You wish you can achlemize properly working recuperacoon to sleep in. Your eye bags are getting worse every day.

The longest time he doesn't come back to his respiteblock is when he's inside the room reserved for Mayor and his can town. They always need to redraw some of the things in red ink since Terezi keeps on licking it off when she runs out of red crayons to chew on. You're silently thankful for what she does since it's making it possible for you to sneak into Strider's respiteblock.

The door wasn't like the ones where you input a code and the door automatically opens for you. It's apparently more of a human concept of what a door is with a small circular metallic thing protruding from its wooden frame. The two humans decided to recreate their rooms in one of the empty unused rooms around the meteor as a sort of reminder of where they came from and where they all started this whole batshit insane trip through sgrub. There's a weirdly shaped slit in the middle of the thing they called a 'door knob' and you figured that you needed a key to open it up. Okay, you r complex plan didn't plan this far ahead and you don't fucking know where Strider hides his keys.

When you try to jiggle the thing open just like how you've seen Rose and Stridouche do it, nothing happens, prompting you to attempt many times more until you get frustrated. Then, a possibly brilliantly stupid idea pops into your think pan. Maybe you could just pry the 'doorknob' open with a crowbar? Looking around, you didn't seem to notice anybody and the noises you've made so far aren't very loud aside from your occasional flurry of colorful curses. Both directed at the stupid door and at the stupid human that decided to use such a dumbass concept as a door. Also, Strider.

You use a nearby transportalizer to telephony to one of the storage units that you know holds a few useful things. You think you remember seeing a crowbar there at some point.

Thankfully, it didn't take too long before you found a crowbar, but by this time, you've already burned through about an hour and a half and you only have about a half hour left to break into the blonde asshole's respiteblock and raid his closet of that yellowish tinted liquid.

You take out the crowbar from your sylladex once you're once again in front of the wooden door. It's just a hunk of wood shaped rectangularly but you didn't expect it to be this much of an obstacle so you thought you'd just cross that bridge when you get there. With a huff, you put the curved edge of the crowbar around the circular metal thing, but before you could even try to pry the thing off of the piece of wood, cold fingers tap your shoulders from behind.

With a loud yelp, you try to get the crowbar and use it as a weapon but fail miserably and end up back against the concrete wall beside the door, like a scared kitten with all its fur on edge. The blonde human grins mischievously at you.

"What are you doing here, Karkat?" She questioned slyly, the hidden meaning behind her words so obviously clear. She eyes the crowbar that had dropped to the floor with a loud 'clank' noise before staring back at you, expression growing all the more amused. "Dave's been looking all over for you." She finally said afterwards, but you know that wad a blatant lie. You've been following him all week and the most he's done to look for you was question the other's if they've seen you around. Other than that, he made no effort to look around the meteor for you. Not even check the usual places you'd most likely be in.

With a frown, you glared right back at her glowing amethyst eyes. "And what the fuck are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with Kanaya performing a walk down the hallways like it's some catwalk with sickeningly revealing clothes, much more than anyone would actually like to fucking see of you?" You centered right back with a low unintentional growl coming from the back of your throat. She still seems utterly unfazed, just like her gross ecto biological brother. Gog fucking damn they're so alike in so many ways you'd think that they were actually the same gogdamn person with the only difference being gender and eye color. They're both assholes.

"Damn Karkat. I didn't know we had more then one clown in the audience inside the vents." She retorted with a grin that showed off her pearly white teeth. You simply furrowed your brows even deeper at the statement, which is only partially true since you have climbed into the vents but refuse to admit that little bit of information to the smug seer of light. You have a reputation to uphold as a harsh mouthed troll with too much self pride than what's good for him. Although, at this current situation, you're pretty sure you've lost all your remaining dignity in Rose's eyes. Like you ever had any in her eyes.

Rolling your eyes, you begin to walk away without another word. You don't want to give her more of a reason to deconstruct your current psychological state. But before you can make a step forward, she grabs you by your collar and pulls you back into the door. "Karkat. _What_ are you doing?" She questioned firmly, eyes searching your own. You involuntarily avert your eyes and self consciously bite your lip.

"It's nothing. Don't fucking mind whatever I do, okay?" You said to her gruffly, but she p you pinned to the door with her narrowed eyes, analyzing every small twitch of your muscles. You were beginning to feel uncomfortable and you'd probably need to stop this little project of yours since Rose is sure to tell Strider about your... 'Adventures'. Mainly the fact that she found you outside of his respiteblock with a crowbar, trying to sneak into his room.

But surprisingly enough, Rose simply exhales rather exaggeratedly. "Fine. I won't meddle with your business with Dave. You've got about 20 minutes left before he comes around." She said without much of a change in her tone or expression. She reaches behind you and twists the door knob before pushing you inside the room with the same sly smile 0before closing the behind her, the only indication of her leaving was her foot steps growing fainter every second.

You sit on the floor for a few more minutes, completely dumbstruck at what just happened.

-

She looks at you with a mildly surprised expression when you come back to the common room where the two of you had been researching and predicting the possible scenarios when you reach the new session. Her curved Jade green eyes are fixed on your face, where you think you're still making the same smirk you've worn when you 'accidentally' ran into the nubby horned troll. You head over to the table filled with thick ancient books and scrolls, consciously fixing your expression to seem less... Wicked. Suspicious.

Kanaya smiles a bit, perhaps already going through multiple guesses as to what would warrant you to put such an expression as the one you just had. You doubt she can precisely guess what plan is brewing up inside your mind though. You're the only one pining for them, much less even be /aware/ of them. Even those two have too much ego and pride to notice it themselves. "Did you find what you were looking for?" She inquired, snapping you out of your daze of skimming through gibberish text.

You look across the table to her fond gaze, smiling a bit and wondering if she knew how she looked like right this moment. With a simple shake of your head, you answer, "No. Although, I would say I ran into something much more interesting then the book I was talking about in my bedroom." Her smile widened just a bit, her eyebrows crinkling together in curiosity.

  
"Is that so. Care to tell me what this interesting thing is?" She inquired further, causing another grin to form on your dark crimson lips. You look back down on the pages you were analyzing, looking for the place you last left at before replying.

"Just something inspiring."

You don't see the expression she makes at your answer, but you certainly hear it in her silky voice. "Scheming again?" She knows you're planning something devious and you try to hide the small laughter bubbling up inside of you. The two of you stay silent for a moment, examining the small details in old scribbles by the carpacian prophets. They're the last few books you managed you salvaged form the battle world. They're very little and much more, very vague in their writing.

"Rose?" Before long, you hear her voice utter your name, quickly gaining your full attention. She doesn't take her eyes off from the book she's got on her lap and instead waves you over with a manicured finger. "I don't know if this is something, but I thought it'd be worth a look at."

You smile faintly before pushing yourself up from leaning on the table to stride over to her side. Something about the situation at hand reminds you of Dave's plans to convince the loud troll to listen to his mixes at his turntables. When did he tell you thst again? 2:35 am while he was utterly drunk with AJ?

Perhaps the small push you gave Karkat would eventually end in a happy ending for the both of them. No matter what form it comes in.

You leaned forward, over Kanaya's shoulder to get a better view of what she was talking about, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder to balance yourself better. You glance at the troll girl and for a moment, you thought you saw her make an uncomfortable looking expression before she turns to you, your eyes meeting for a moment. The curves of her dark lips curls up into a pleasant smile, smile lines reaching her glowing eyes, something you return to her.

Perhaps you should do a little bit of adjustments to your current work in progress plan.

Either way, both you and your brother still have a long way to go.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry but I'm too lazy to properly code the chat boxes. Also, I'm on my phone too so :")

Despite the confusing thing Rose just did a few moments ago, you decide it's best not to question it for now and take this opportunity to finally look for something incriminating about Strider.

His respiteblock was the same size as yours but it seemed so much more smaller due to the clutter all over the room. Something in you seemingly kicks in and you feel the need to clean all of his useless shit up, but you don't have enough time. Maybe you can bother the blonde haired fuck about his shitty living space later. For now, you walk over crumpled pieces of paper, crinkled clothes, discarded empty bottles, and various other things while your eyes scan your current surroundings. He's got his bed propped against the corner of the room, facing the door with his turntables just across the room from it. You could see the overflowing trashcan beside the turntables, filled with mostly crumpled paper and indecipherable scribbles. You spot a desk at the edge of his bed with his cabinet near the door and the vent opening right above the closet. There's also a night stand beside the human's bed, a glowing red lava lamp sitting atop it idly.

You make a mental list of things you should check out and how much time you'll spend on exhausted item before you have to gtfo before Strider finds you snooping around his sleeping quarters. It would look extra weird since you've also been avoiding his ass for quite a while now, despite following him everywhere. You make sure that you're not on his line of sight. Ever. You're not talking to him until you've got blackmail material to use against him and finally make him stop messing around with you so much. You're a gogdamn leader! You're older than him! But he treats you like shit and you hate it so much. But if he simply changed his attitude...-

Your thoughts are never finished as you reached out to the handle of the closet and cautiously opened it to peer at its contents. Inside the closet was a few articles of clothing, all being the colors red, black, and white. Only red, black, and white. Literally. That's not the only thing. The rest of the closet was full of stacks of the bottles you've seen before. There was still so much of it even though there was a few gaps in some places. You're pretty sure he filled up the whole closet with the shit and he's just going through it until he restocks.

You grab a bottle and examine it on a closer level. It was a yellowish liquid that's very viscious. It reminds you a little of the slime inside the recuperacoons, although toy would never dare to eat that shit. You saw what it did to Gamzee on the daily.

Around the bottle was some sort of paper wrapping? It made crinkly noises when you squeezed the bottle and it had small text in some places while where you suspect the middle is an image of some sort of red symbol? You guess it must be apples, the kind of shit Strider couldn't shut up about when you said you didn't fucking know what the shit he's talking about. He showed you a bunch of pictures, some of it you barely glanced at so the image of what 'apples' look like are a little fuzzy in your thinkpan.

You only take one from his stash, putting it in your sylladex before moving onto somewhere else. It's highly probable that the fair haired douche will notice if huge stacks of his precious 'whatever the hell are these apples in a bottle' are. You'll have to use small samples when you start experimenting on this shit.

The closest thing to the closet was his turntables and the trashcan overflowing with paper scraps, some even torn to tiny little bits. This piques your interest and you decide to pick up a few of the still intact crumpled up paper. You lean back on the turntables a bit as you open up one of them and read the contents. Some of them are rap lyrics, half of the references made are completely unknown to you. There were also some seemingly rough drafts of other shitty plot lines he drew up for his fucked up online comic. You weren't too surprised about it though. You expected him to have such shitty drawing skills that he even needs to practice his disgusting shit on paper first before he goes ahead and processes it into the pure cancer he produces on the Internet. Still, not very useful information. He's not embarrassed with his shitty abilities to draw and claim that they're purely for 'ironic purposes'. He's such a fucking dumbass for always using the word but never knowing the actual definition for it.

Perhaps the 6th or 7th one that you open up catches you by surprise though. It was a fairly clean paper but it was a short poem. The rhymes are simple, but it's simplicity makes you appreciate it all the more. Like it was intentionally made to be simple for the sake of the meaning behind it, but you know the blonde asshole is just terrible when it comes to any type of literature.

' _Crows circle the sky ahead._  
_While a body lies beneath, dead._  
_They tell me it's okay to cry,_  
_But I can't muster myself to try._  
_Though sometimes I wonder, 'why can't I?'_ '

It's left pretty ambiguous as to what he really meant but this only fuels your curiosity more. So you stash the trashcan and all its crumpled up paper inside your sylladex for further inspection later. You're pretty sure he won't be as bothered about missing trashcans as he is about his secret stash of yellow liquid inside his closet.

You were about to move along to his nightstand when you begin to hear footsteps nearing the room. Shoes that clicked against the metallic surface of the meteor floor. For a solid moment, you looked around the room terrified before finally deciding to shove yourself inside the little space left inside the closet and hope he doesn't open it. But you're pretty fucking positive that you fucked up. You didn't keep track of time and ended up spending too much time.

You know it's him because he's the only one who has the strides you've come to recognize. Deliberate, yet slow paced enough but not in a relaxed way. As if he's being cautious and purposely not walking in a relaxed pace so he can get ready to sprint at any moment. He always seemed ready for a strife when you observed him while he was alone. You guess that aspect of him has fueled your interest just a little bit more now. You can relate somehow, since you always felt persecuted somehow outside of your hive. You were cautious with your movements, ready to run if it came to it even though the likelihood of you being found out as a mutant was quite low. Well, low until you become of age and get sent off to off world conquest. Where they'll find out your real blood color. The thought still shudders you to this day, although it's been so long since then. It's a life long forgotten, but still fondly thought of. Compared to now, those were peaceful and calm times.

The click of the door and it's slow creaking noise pull you back to your current very dire situation. You grit your teeth together and hold in your breath as his yellow and red form comes into view from the tiny slit in the closet door. He seems to relax much more once he's inside his room, not having that stiffness he seems to carry around while you followed him all around the small meteor.

You watch him come in and out of view while he seemed to be tidying a few things up inside his room. After half heartedly hiding his dirty laundry under the bed, he picks up a half empty bottle the yellow liquid that was sitting on the floor beside the bed. He rolls up his red sleeves and puts on some surprisingly calming music for background music before he heads onto his human bed and starts looking through his pester hum on a rectangular device. You frown a bit as you notice a few lines around his forearm and for a moment, you think that they were marks he put on himself with a marker, but they're not. Squinting to get a better look at it, you realize that they're pale lines going all across his arm, all varying in sizes and length. You bite down on your lip, trying not to break your skin with your serrated teeth. He's always been so pale that it baffles you, but the lighter colored lines against his skin shocked you eve more. They seemed almost white, but with a slight grayish pale tint. Were those... Scars?

Slowly exhaling the breath you've been keeping, you watch him silently. Something inside you seems to ache and this whole project of your concoction sits in your think pan very wrongly. This feels wrong. You're doing something wrong to Strider and you /don't/ feel happy about it like you should be.

Fuck. How the hell are you going to get out of this shit you've dug up for yourself? Chances are, Strider's going to stay in here and write his shitty comic for hours before he leaves and decides he needs more social interaction for his utterly sucky skills in conversing with anyone.

For a moment, you consider pestering Rose to come and distract Strider for just long enough to make your escape through the vent above the closet. But you quickly shake your head at the dumbass idea and continue to nervously watch the blonde chill on his bed, sipping from his bottle occasionally. You can see that it's also running out and you're sure he'll open the closet to get some more if you don't get the fuck out of here real soon. The idea of asking Rose and her smug ass for help starts to rise out of your pile of shitty ideas and start to haunt you. It may be your only effective option at the moment. You fucking refuse to be found out by Strider and have his ass follow you all around, never letting you forget the fucked up thing you did on this day. Hiding inside his closet like a disgusting obsessed stalker. You. Motherfucking. Refuse.

With a a reluctant sigh, you take out your husk top from your sylladex and open up Trollian. It said that Lalonde was online and you move your mouse over her purple highlighted name, cringing all the way through the process. Another smaller window pops up in front of you.

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] -

-

You hear your phone vibrate on the wooden table right beside where your book rested. You pick it up, half listening to Kanaya's attempt at reading the washed out text when you notice the first notification at the top. Seems like some interesting has contacted you.

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] -

CG : LALONDE  
CG : I MAY NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE

You instantly grin at the first thing you see when you opened up the message from Vantas. Something entertaining has happened and you can't wait to go over and poke a little fun at his fuck up. He probably lost track of time and ended up having to hide inside Dave's closet when he didn't get out of there in time. The thought brings up a small wave of silent giggles at the image inside your head.

Kanaya looks up from her wrinkled scroll to give you a prepared expression. You adjust your smile and shake your head at her. "I'll be back, Kan. Seems like my brother needs help sorting out his shit again." She half lied, sarcastically rolling your eyes. Kanaya grins, perfectly understanding the situation. She nods let's you go.

"Have fun." She called after you sarcastically, giving you an encouraging wink. You smile widely and return the gesture.

 

  
"Probably not as much as the time I spend with you." You dared to say before turning your back and willing yourself not to take a peak at the troll girl's reaction to the mildly flirtatious comment. You don't want to risk things becoming awkward between the two of you.

-

TT : What do you need, Karkat?  
CG : FUCK. I CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE I'M DOING THIS BUT...  
CG : CAN YOU DISTRACT STRIDER? I NEED TO FUCKING GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE HE FINDS ME AND THINKS IM SECRETLY OBSESSED WITH HIM BY HIDING IN HIS CLOSET.  
TT : Are you sure you aren't in the first place? You do seem obsessed with hating him.  
CG : IT'S FUCKING DIFFERENT LALONDE  
TT : Obsession is obsession, Karkat. No matter what form in comes in.  
CG : OKAY LOOK  
CG : I DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO FUCKING THIS DISCUSS THIS HOOF BEAST SHIT OF A TOPIC WITH YOU ROSE  
CG : I'D RATHER SCREAM OUT MY OPINIONS RIGHT TO YOUR FACE THEN STUBBORNLY DISREGARD ANY COUNTER ARGUMENT YOU HAVE  
CG : I FUCKING KNOW MYSELF BEST SO YOU DON'T FUCKING NEED TO TELL ME SHIT LIKE YOU KNOW ME BETTER  
TT : Again, are you sure? Your views on things seems to fluctuate a lot, the main evidence being the memos you've left behind in the past.  
CG : ARE YOU GONNA FUCKING HELP ME OR NOT?  
TT : Don't worry, Karks. I'm already on my way.

\- tentacleTherapist [TT] has left the chat -

CG : STOP IT WITH THE STUPID ASS NICK-  
CG : FUCK IT

\- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] -

Quickly closing your husktop, your eyes immediately dart back to the blonde still sitting back on his bed, looking as comfortable as ever. You begin to wonder of the douche was ever going to take his stupid aviators off. If so, you might actually be able to use it as ammo to his oversized ego. Maybe he hides his eyes because he actually look really fucked up without them? Holy fucking shit you would love it if that was the case. You force exciting to bubbled inside you, trying to ignore the growing discomfort you feel for trying to find and exploit his weakness. Strider deserves what's coming for him. The fucking bastard never felt sorry when he belittled your pride. You won't be sorry this time either.

He reaches out for his bottle, but when he grabs it and lifts it to his lips, nothing comes out. He seemed surprised for a moment, dumbfoundedly staring at the bottle before he began to shift his position to stand up. Oh you are so fucked now if Rose doesn't get her ass here quick enough. He tosses the bottle in the general direction of where his trashcan was supposed to be, only for it to tumble to the floor with a thump. He barely registers it and makes an immediate beeline for his closet. You fucking hold your breath to keep any noise from escaping your lung and cower into the farthest corner as you possibly can.

There's a knock on the door, following a specific rhythm for 5 seconds. You don't see Strider go over to the door to open it since you're too fucking busy keeping your eyes shut from utter terror and inevitable humiliation that never actually comes. You only hear the soft click of the door and it's hushed creaking noise as it's pulled open.

Your fucking heart sighs at that wondrous noise. Now, all you have to do is wait for Lalonde to walk Strider fat enough away from his gogdamn room so you can sneakily climb out from the vents and crawl all the way back to your own respiteblock and do some thorough inspection of the things you found in the blonde fuckass's room.

-

She smiles tentatively at you for a long moment as soon as you opened the door for her. After the awkward mini staring contest you both fucking decided to do unconsciously, she finally tilts her head to look past you and glance inside your room. You don't fucking bother to move aside and give her a better look since she'll just tell you to clean your shit up when she's exactly the same. You're both huge ass hypocrites. Once she got an eyeful of your eyesore you call a bedroom, she meets your eyes once again, like you aren't even wearing your shades right now. You always found that part of your ecto sister creepy as fuck and disconcerting. You're not exactly fond of people who act like they can see right through you. But Rose never acts. She knows and she sees right through you, and none of it is ever acting. It fucking freaks you out.

"What do you want?" You questioned in what you hoped a tone that sounded nonchalant. She immediately quirks an eyebrow at you and brings her hands out from behind her back to cross them in front of her. She smiles lightly at you, the gesture doing only so little to calm down your uneasiness at the way she stared at you with clear intent.

"Nothing much, Dave. Just wanted to have a little chat with you about something important. I'm sure you could use the exercise, so why don't we take a walk?" She answered in a relaxed manner, her smile turning into a more sided one. Fucking shit. She probably wants to analyze your mental state again though various vague questions. You don't want to fucking do this. And you were also just asking Terezi for shit to add onto your comic (probably the worst choice ever since she has absolutely zero creativity), and you were only starting to get comfortable on your bed.

You only slightly frown at her, but she raises an eyebrow in response. She's clearly not going to let you go so fucking easily and saying no would eventually end in a yes after about an hour of her trying to fuck with your psychology and force a more positive answer from you for her. With an exhausted and exaggerated sigh, you reluctantly hang your head and nod, beginning to roll your sleeves back down before stepping outside of your comfort zone.

"There. What did you want to talk about then?" You questioned, feigning annoyance as you put your hands into your pockets and began walking a few steps ahead of her. You don't bother to look back and look at her satisfied expression any longer.

She quickly catches up to you and starts walking right beside you. The long silence as the two of you walked around was comforting enough before she finally began to speak. "Mind if I ask you about how the search for Karkat is going?" She questioned and just from her tone, you already fucking know where this shitty conversation is headed to and how it's destined to end. This is why you sometimes have a hard time confiding in Rose for these types of shit. But then again, there's virtually no one else you can talk to about situations like this and actually give you fairly serious and solid advice. But the fucking teasing gets to you, goddamn it. Your insecurities can't handle the shit she spews out sometime. They're pretty harsh burns. Why did she have to be so well fucking gifted with words and quips?

"Nothing's happening. Is that seriously all you came to ask for?" You questioned, taking a sidestep to distance yourself a little. You tilt your head to face a little and frown.

"Are you sure? You've been walking around his usual hangouts lately and glancing around inside before acting like you don't actually care." You frowned at that, but not speaking to neither confirm or deny the accusation. Because it'd be more obvious that it's true if you deny it and confirming is... Well, confirming it.

You turn your eyes to the long grey hallway in front of you. "It's nothing okay? This meteor is huge as fuck so I'm not surprised that someone can hide for days at a time without anyone finding them." You say instead, giving no indication of your masked worry for the troll. You really fucked up the last few days and you know you really pissed him off this time. Maybe you should stop making fun of him by highlighting his flaws. You're a huge fucking dick and you can't even muster up enough courage to say sorry. But then again, why the hell are you looking for him in the first place? Fuck, at this point your just so confused.

Rose keeps her eyes on you. You can fucking feel her gaze trying to pierce through your thick headed skull to cut up your every thought and find out the actual reasons. Preferably, something that proves her right. "I saw him earlier today."

You quickly perk up at the words that came from her mouth, and you glance her way, involuntarily looking interested. But God fucking damn it you realize it a second too late to actually do anything about it. She smirks at your sudden snap to attention when she brought up the topic. She clearly knew you would react this way so if all her other attempts failed, she'd pull out her trump card to get an answer from you. Fucking cunning snake. You can't help but sigh inwardly.

"Yeah, I saw him. Dave, why don't we have a serious talk for a moment. How do you feel about MC shouty?" She suddenly straightforwardly inquires you, walking ahead to stand in your way and stop you in your tracks.

Shit.

You frown deeper at her question. "Rose, I'm not going to fucking answer that and feed your constant need to examine everyone's psychology." You said before continuing to walk, going around her instead.

But she doesn't follow after you, and you let your expression fall a little the farther you got away from her gaze. He's still lingering at the back of your mind. Goddamn fucking damn it, it would've been easier if the annoying troll was female. Then you wouldn't actually have to question your existence and sexuality and the actual importance of it when your whole planet is basically dead at this point.

The universe hates you.

-

\- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

TT : Did you get out smoothly?  
TT : Hello?  
TT : I know you're online. It says you're online.  
TT : And now you just changed your status to invisible. That makes it even more obvious that you're ignoring me, Karkat.  
TT : Well, I guess it doesn't matter much now.  
TT : Take care. Message me again if you need anything of importance again.

\- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG] -

You ignore the rings that comes from you husky op when you checked and found that it was Rose who was pestering you. From across your human bed, lay the trashcan and it's contents of crumpled up paper. Sighing deeply, you bury your whole face into the soft pillows surrounding you.

Shit. You can't bear to open any of them because the more you think about the poem on your desk, the more uneasy you get. Something tells you that this isn't something you can use to get back at Strider. Something that might actually get the blonde to hate you if you tried. He might leave you alone after, forever ignoring your existence.

But... Isn't this what you wanted? Something inside seems other twist in nervousness. Curling up into a ball, you try to sleep it off instead. You don't fucking know what to do anymore.

-


	3. Chapter 3

' _Crows circle the sky ahead._  
_While a body lies beneath, dead._  
_They tell me it's okay to cry,_  
_But I can't muster myself to try._  
_But sometimes I wonder, 'why can't I_?' '

What the fuck does that shit means?

For the last 3 days, all you've done is be holed up in your respiteblock. You've one by one unfurled each crumpled up paper and tried ton piece together the ripped up ones. But most of the time it's like an overly complicated puzzle you're not exactly very motivated to solve.

With the best of your ability, you pushed back the thoughts of guilt you felt when you see the trashcan you swiped from the blonde human's room. For now, you split each of the notes into different categories.

There's one for random notes that hold little to no meaning. Random scribbles, doodles, memos, reminders, ect. Then there were the ones where he put down lyrics or unfinished poems he tried to write. Among that pile was seeming imaginary letters he tried to write, but was mostly unfinished and abandoned with only a few words to simply a scribbled out ' _dear_ '. The last pile was the ones you managed to separate from the others. Small pieces of ripped up paper with fading pencil writings. That pile is the one that intrigues you the most by far, but there is an underlying fear at what it contain. He ripped it up for a reason so it couldn't be read ever again.

You've carefully read all the notes that could possibly have meant something to Strider. At this point in time, your goals have changed slightly. You're not... Exactly looking for a weakness at this point. You simply want to know just to satisfy your curiosity. From what you could tell, the makeshift letters were usually addressed to John, Jade, or to both of them. Sometimes, to his 'bro', which you assume is his 'guardian' or 'parent figure', Lind of like your lusus back in Alternia. You bite your lip when you pick up one of the crumpled up yellow paper from the pile and re-read everything on it.

It was messily written in both graphite and ink pen, and you suppose it's because half way through writing it, the pencil stopped making marks on the paper when it got wet. You're quite familiar with the texture of the paper and it's faded out blotches. The only difference is that it wasn't red like the papers in your many discarded notebooks. But tears are still tears. They're still liquid and they still stain paper the way, even if the color is different. You've heard from Rose that human tears were clear and didn't have any color to them, unlike troll tears that have the same color as their blood. You've always refrained from crying in front of your friends because of it. And somehow, the thought of being seen crying gives the feeling of powerlessness, embarrassment, and shame. Trolls didn't cry. They only cried when in high amounts of physical pain. Any other reason would be seen as weakness. You unconsciously hold your breath at the thought.

" _ ~~Dear Jade~~ ~~,~~_

~~_Dear John,_ ~~

~~_I'm so sorry- I'm so fucking sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being a shitty friend. I'm so sorry for being so fucking useless. I'm sorry for not being a hero. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Bro, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Fuck I don't even fucking know your real name but, I'm so fucking sorry for **not** feeling sorry. Im- "_ ~~

At that point in the letter, everything gets too jumbled up to read, but you guess that it's him just constantly rewriting 'sorry', his penmanship getting worse and worse the more he wrote, until began to look like the faded writings of a 1 sweep old wriggler who's barely even learned how to hold a pen with its new limbs.

' _What the fuck do you mean you're not a hero, Strider? Stop spewing fucking bullshit. You fucking liar. Stop it. You have nothing to say sorry for. I do_.' You want to say it to his face, but you're finding it very hard to breath right now. Why the fuck are your tearducts allowing fluids to come out of your eyes? Fuck this shit. This was a fucking big mistake. You should have just left your relationship with him as it is. You're just so obsessed with winning over him and proving yourself, aren't you? You even got your friends killed because of your need of self confirmation. You should have just left him alone. You should've...- You should've...

He's so fucking wrong about everything. You fucking know that John and Jade would argue with their lives with him about him being a shitty friend. You would. Compared to you, he's fucking amazing and helped his friends so much more. All you fucking did was be a shitty leader and talk all of your friends down. You're so fucking shitty you feel offended that Strider would fucking dare to say that he's shittier than all the stupid bullshit you thought were bright ideas back at the time. Fuck him. He's...- He's...- He's...- But...- But-... Why does it burn inside your chest at the fact that you can _relate_ to his emotional bullshit? His stupid fucking face can't even make an expression other than the basic emotions. You've never even him fucking _smile._  Or fucking at learn attempt it.

You stumble backwards into your bed. No, you need to stop thinking. This isn't fucking help you at all. This is making you worse. You don't need another person's problems burden your any further than your burdening yourself. But don't fucking deserve to carry everyone's shit after standing there, being utterly useless as you see your friends _die_ right in front of you. Jegus, you watched Kanaya mercilessly cut Eridan in half after you thought that she died. You're- you're- you're-

This meteor does fucking have air, right? Why the fuck is it so hard to breath? Why the fuck do you feel so terrified? Why the fuck is everything darkening despite you staring straight at the fucking lights above your human bed?

You've never seen him smile.

The more you think, the more you realize things about yourself and your situation. That's why you hate thinking.

You've never seen him smile. And neither has he seen you smile.

Have you even smiled at all in your entire life?

Terezi fucking smiles like a crazed witch. Gamzee still smiles, sober or high. Hell, you've seen Kanaya smile when she's with Rose. Even in the rare occasion you've seen those two together, you've fucking heard Lalonde's genuine laugh. Mayor doesn't have a mouth bit you can fucking tell that's he's gogdamn happy when he's building can town.

It's always just the two of you.

Both of you... Never smile.

You smile at the thought, your muscles urging you to do so despite the things that flow like streams from your eyes. It feels broken. Something feels entirely broken about what you're doing right now, but you can't stop smiling and hearing your harsh voice laugh. You can't stop the broken tone of your laughter as it keeps on morphing from wretched sobs to irrational heartbroken laughter.

This doesn't help. This never helps.

You curl into a ball and close your eyes tightly. Your mind's eye begins to create images for you, trying in earnest to forget your thoughts until you drift back into peaceful sleep.

His face always appears to you. When you want to be distracted from depressing thoughts, his face appears and you begin to conjure your irrational hate for him. But it's somehow different this time.

This time, you imagine his white ghost like form, clad in contrasting red, so bright. So easy to spot in a field of greys everywhere. His fair hair, his roundish face. The black shades that stood out on his pale face, his thin lips that's always in a pursed straight line. His signature expressionlessness. Then, you tried to imagine him smiling.

But you just can't.

-

Day 29th. Almost 30 days. Almost a whole month and at this point, you can't help hit fucking worry about him. You don't even care what Rose thinks or assumes about your worry. Ever since day 20, you started pestering him. At first, it was just a barrage of annoying different greetings. ' _Hey, hiya, Karks, you, 'sup, aloha, konichiwa_ ,' other stupid shit like that. You always manage to get his attention by sending him a shit load of stupid shit.

The first night was the simple nightly fucked up shit you think about. You sent him a quick greeting before going into a full rant all by yourself about the possible consequences of the universe actually being a frog with a green sun sustaining it. You were tired and though you couldn't tell the time by looking out your window, you phone told you it was nearing 3 in the morning if you stayed by the earth clock.

You expected him to have read all the messages when you woke up the next 'morning' and have sent you a long wall of grey text trying to explain to you why your an absolute shit head for staying up late enough to have an existential crisis about the most stupidest thing. After all, you did have a rant with him once about a what if scenario about sentient apples and talking puppets that got him to block you for a full week until you managed to steal his computer and unblock yourself. You're glad he didn't block you again when he found out.

But you still got nothing.

After giving it another 2 to 3 days, you hit him up again and spam him with a bunch of cheesy roscom scenes as well as asking if he's seen some of the titles you've mentioned.

Nothing.

Now, you're wondering if he actually hates you so much now that he's putting an effort to actually cut ties with you. You don't want to consider the thought but you haven't seen him for almost a month and your dumbass still hasn't managed to apologize for constantly making fun of him. For the first few weeks, you were kinda uncertain because you're a fuck head that cares too much about how he looks. But now, you just wanna see him and tell him that you're sorry. You're not sure if you're able to tell him that it's okay for him to absolutely ignore your existence again because even this small I me apart makes you feel anxious all over.

You didn't want to fuck things up between the two of you. But here you are now, pacing the outside of his door and constantly glancing at its steel form as you considered your next actions carefully.

' _I know it's going to sound clichéd as fuck, but follow your heart. There's no room for doubt in this game. Do what you want while we still can. It's only a few years before duty calls for us again, and... I'm not sure if we can all make it_.' Her words floated up into your mind again. You once again approached Rose for serious counselling and thank god she took you seriously. You're glad she understands when it's not okay to joke about your situation. You remembered the bitter smile on her black lips and you could tell that she's not taking her own advice. She still hasn't told Kanaya after all the time you've spent on this rock so far. In all honesty, you actually expected the two to get together as soon as you all met up on the rendezvous point. Guess what Karkat said about romance was true. ' _It's a slow burn. Infatuation tends to be just that. Infatuation. It doesn't mean anything if the character doesn't get to know the other enough to genuinely like their whole being_.'

Fuck. Now you're even quoting him and his dumbass philosophical statements about below 50% rated romantic comedy movies that feature Adam Sandler. Whoops. You meant _troll_  Adam Sandler. You can't fucking believe how desperate and uncool you are right now. Then again, maybe you can?

A year and a half since you met him. And he got you to question your whole view on things with those exact stupid philosophical statements about the rom com he takes so seriously. You've always seen it as him looking for things that may not actually be there, but nonetheless, he stayed on your fucking mind. ' _It's always a slow burn that takes two to light.'_

You decided to just man the fuck up and knock on his door. You waited for a response and at this point, you find yourself opening pesterchum again to annoy the little troll. That is, if he's even reading any of the shit you send him. You've probably sent him about over 500 messages at this point. So fucking uncool right now. Didn't you always build up your image on the fact that you're a hard to get type? But here you are, running after some alien troll boy who's got weird tastes, a foul mouth that constantly spews an array of insults, and has a somewhat serious issue with his own self esteem. Yeah, you've seen the memos. It's kinda... Depressing seeing how self depreciating he was. Maybe still is.

You wait and wait in front of that door, with thought that just keep filling up your mind. Sure, you're still uncertain about _going_  that far and confessing like an anime school girl under cherry blossom trees, but you need to stop denying yourself. That was what Rose advised you when you asked her about the sensitive topic, but you're still very unsure. You grew up in an environment that wasn't very welcoming of those kinds of people, online or in real life. But then again, you didn't get out of the apartment much anyways. It's just that... You can't help the terrible empty twisting feeling in your stomach at the thought of being rejected about such a serious topic. 

Waiting and waiting, you ended up sitting and leaning against the wall beside the door. You boredly knock at his door again, but still nothing, but your thoughts kept flooding in, distracting you. But never enough to make the anxiety to go away completely. It seems like music is the only thing that ever soothes you in stressful situations like this.

Without conscious knowledge of it, you begin to knock at his door in a slow rhythmatic pace. It's an old lullaby you remember your bro trying to hum to you as a kid with a huge ass smuppet body pillow. You don't know the lyrics and you're sure he made it all up, but it's still got a nice tune to it. It reminded you that not everything in a bad situation is always bad. Like the yin yang symbol. There is a little bit of good in the bad and a little bit of bad in the good. That was one of the sweeter memories you have of your childhood.

Closing you eyes, you continue to tap out the tune, and before you knew if, you were fast aldeep on the ground right in front of his bedroom.

You hope he comes out soon. You don't even mind if he opens the door on your head. Just means he'll wake you up just before he can act like he never saw you and run away in some secluded part of the meteor again.

It's simple, really. The reason you're like this.

You utterly miss him. And the fantasies you're mind creates for you about things you want to do but you know you can't. Its a wonderful lie to torture yourself with once you're awake again.

You just miss him.

-

He's out there, worried sick about you. You guess your irrational hate for him is just that... Irrational. You have always forced yourself to hate his entire being, but in the end, when you think about it reasonably, the small things he does isn't enough for you to hate his entire existence. You tried to magnify all the shitty things he says to you to give you a reason to hate him. But that's not entirely fair since you know you've had fun banters with him before, when he actually gets you to snap back and stop ignoring him. Scrolling through the late night chats you had with him was proof of that.

A long ass wall of red text greeted you as soon as you opened the tab that contained your ludicrous texts with Strider. They were stupid shit that he thought of when he couldn't sleep, and you decided to humor him by replying since you can't sleep either. Too afraid of the nightmares that come around if you can't distract your thoughts properly. It's better than staring straight up at a blank ceiling and waiting for exhaustion to lull you to sleep. Extreme tiredness usually equals to dreamers sleep. You like that, so you sleep as little as possible to purposefully tire yourself out.

The texts he always sent you were stupid and meaningless. He keeps on talking and talking without actually saying anything. You had the same. Hell, you still do it. And though these were depressing thoughts, the only thing you could feel was the cold chills it sent down you spine. The freezing numbness of your fingers. The stillness of your body with a slow heart beat hidden deep beneath your species' tough exterior. Sometimes, you wonder if it's just you. But it seems your species is built to survive on the outside, but absolutely collapses on the inside when it came to interpersonal issues. Perhaps it just had to do with the fact that you're young? After all, you're still 6 sweeps old. Barely reaching 7.

The light coming from the screen of your device was beginning to tire your eyes out. You've been awake for approximately 16 hours now. Your eyes slowly flutter up and down, while you still fought to keep your consciousness.

Then you heard it. The noise was light, but in the void of your room, it was loud and clear. A faint slow beat. Perfect to sleep to. But your heart beat quickens and you rise up to your feet, carelessly taking the blanket with you while it still clung to the small frame of your shoulders. You grab the papers from your desk and head to your door, the exhaustion keeping your mind from over thinking things and stressing the implications of your actions to yourself. You're so constant judge of yourself, so you can't calm down and accept the feelings you see as 'wrong' to yourself. Even if your alone. It's not a matter of secretly liking something as a guilty pleasure. You feel the weight of the guilt doing it despite no one else seeing it. You are a constant jury, judge, and executioner of yourself.

The cold metallic floor and the fact that you're still barefooted doesn't help the wave of chills that comes through you again. Like a tidal wave to you insides that starts in the pit of your stomach, then rolls all the way up to your lungs, until it makes its way to your head where you feel the urge to sob and cry, but you've run dry. You just can't cry no matter how much you feel like releasing it all. And the waves go away with everything you have inside of you, leaving you an empty numb shell. Is it really just you that's bad with dealing with these types of intense feelings? Your species is well equipped for war. But it seems that it isn't very well equipped for love. Or any emotions, for that matter. Maybe that'd why it was always taboo for trolls to feel remorse for murders and acts of extreme violence.

With your weary eyes, you read out his letter to guardian. It was the ripped up paper you've finally managed to piece together like a puzzle. It took awhile, and some words are missing, but most of the important content is there. You've pieced his story little by little, and although there was a lot of cultural differences that prevented you from fully relating or understanding the meaning of his words, you can somewhat understand the fair hair's feelings.

_'Hey. I know it's too late for you to see this letter, but Rose said it might help. I... thought a lot about it and although I still don't understand why... You did those things, Rose helped me to understand a little better. Afterall, I'm still just a stupid kid, right?_

_Um... She told me that parents or guardians, the people who look after you as a child, just try their best to raise you, the only way they can. I never really understand why you taught me through daily strife routines and surprise attacks, and what the meaning of all those lectures about being strong was about. But... I guess you were only trying to look for me, weren't you? And stupid little me didn't bother to try and talk to you about it. I... never mentioned my problems so you never had the chance to make it right. You wanted me to be strong, right? So... If you weren't here... I could carry on. But in the end, I still carry on without you. But for all the wrong reasons._

_I thought you were the coolest person ever, because you're... My parent. The person who's cared for me since I was young. I never knew anything outside of the the things we did, so I thought it was okay. But... when you were gone... And it forced me to relive my whole entire life up to now... I guess I realized I was never happy doing the things you wanted me to. And I guess I realized the only person I admired my entire life actually really let me down? I don't think I could ever sum it up as 'hating you' but... you tried your best. To make me tough because the real world won't be easy. Criticism is everywhere, and you can never let it get to you, right? If you accept the hatred, then they can't hurt you. Not reacting... is like throwing water at fire. It extinguishes it.... Right?_

_I'm sorry. I'm really fucking sorry. I'm always a fuck up right? A stupid kid who doesn't know what he's doing. I know that. For a long while now. I'm..._

_I'm just sorry. I... hope you can forgive me. Even though I don't deserve it. Fuck it, I don't deserve it, so I won't ask for apologies. I'm just a fuck up with too much luck to stay alive. And I'm reminded everytime I see myself dead in an alley somewhere in my planet. I...- I'm sorry. I'm not a hero.'_

You look over at your door when the tune abruptly stops. You scoot over to the door and lean against its cold hard surface, enjoying the small sensation you can feel in your nerves. It's nice to feel something. Anything.

With one hand carefully holding the taped up piece of paper, you use your other free hand to lazily raise it to your door and over the spot you estimate where his pale hands tapped out the small melodic tune. With a sigh, you lightly hit your head back against the door and close your eyes tightly.

That beverage he keeps on drinking... It tastes nice. You can understand why he likes it so much.

-

As you suspected. He tells you all his problems when he has no body else to turn to and it's been plaguing his mind for a very long time. Dave tends to keep everything to himself with that straight face of his you always try your hardest to decipher. You can't help but worry about him sometimes since you found out all the complicated things that runs through his head. Surprisingly enough, he tends to overcome locate things. But then again, you're children who grew up too fast and it's natural for teenagers your age to think twice about everything they're having doubts about. You hate to admit it, but it's one of the major reasons you still haven't asked the troll girl to get together with you yet.

With a rather exaggerated sigh, you pull out the thick blanket you keep in your sylladex and unfold it until it was spread out wide. You pull the fabric over his defenseless body and cover him up to his neck. Sitting outside of his room out in the cold hallway was bad. He could catch a cold, and as far as you knew, godtier outfits didn't automatically heal diseases. But you suppose if the disease did kill it's godtier host, they would simply come back alive since it was neither a just or heroic death.

With a small smile, you even push up his aviators that was halfway down his nose and almost falling off. "I hope you get what you ginkgo you don't deserve." You mutter quietly, laughing a little when his still sleeping form snorts, as if in response to what you had just told him.

Before you completely turn your back on him and head back to your own room, you glance back at your brother one last time, a grim smile gracing your dark lips. He looks relaxed when he's sleeping. You hope he would take your advice more often and actually sleep a total of 8 hours. The minimum amount of sleep a 16 year old minor needs.

Perhaps you'll work on that when Strider decides to actually attend your next session.

-


End file.
